Dragon-like Jade Pendant | Harvard Art Museums

Identification and Creation

Object Number: 1943.50.366
Title: Dragon-like Jade Pendant
Classification: Ritual Implements
Work Type: pendant
Date: early 20th century
Places: Creation Place: East Asia, China
Culture: Chinese
Persistent Link: https://hvrd.art/o/203678

Physical Descriptions

Medium: Translucent, light gray-green and brown nephrite with an opaque bone-colored area
Dimensions: 12 x 0.4 cm (4 3/4 x 3/16 in.)
unspecified: 50 g

Published Text

Catalogue: Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
Authors: Max Loehr and Louisa G. Fitzgerald Huber
Publisher: Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1975)

Catalogue entry no. 629 by Max Loehr:

629 Dragon-like Pendant
Translucent, light gray-green and brown jade with an opaque bone-colored area, shaped as a flat, curved, dragon-like monster figure. This crude specimen, similar in workmanship to no. 628 and most likely a fabrication of the same forger, is apparently an imitation of an undoubtedly genuine Western Chou piece, once in the collection of C. T. Loo (see Sirén, Kinas Konst Under Tre Årtusenden, I, pl. 51: c; bottom, and Arden Gallery “3000 Years of Chinese Jade,” p. 71, no. 133). Whereas the dragon pendant may follow its prototype in general outline and in its basic design, the treatment of detail is utterly inept and the technique of carving incompetent—the relief effect produced by the method of engraving in the case of the original not even being attempted here. It is of 20th-century date, presumably.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.50.366

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Publication History

Alfred Salmony, Carved Jade of Ancient China, Gillick Press (Berkeley, CA, 1938), pl. 22: 3
Max Loehr and Louisa G. Fitzgerald Huber, Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1975), cat. no. 629, p. 432

Verification Level

This record was created from historic documentation and may not have been reviewed by a curator; it may be inaccurate or incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

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